Unbroken (6 page)

"Sorry," Amber mumbled.  She reached into her purse and withdrew a twenty and a ten, pushing it through the hole he had just used to wake her up.  "Keep the change."  That elicited a smile at least.  It had been an expensive ride for her, but Simon had insisted and she was glad he had.  The subway wasn't running at this time of night anyway, and the all night bus would have been packed with drunks and nutcases, with the occasional psychopath hidden in the mix.

Stumbling out of the car and fumbling with her keys, she made it inside her security door as her taxi pulled away, anxious to return to a more affluent neighborhood.  The walls of the elevator on her way up to the seventh floor seemed to wobble just like in her dream, and for a moment she had to concentrate not to throw up.  Simon had a much higher tolerance for Jager Bombs than she did.  But it was so worth it.  She hadn't had that much fun in a long time. 

Still smiling, Amber pushed open the door to her apartment and threw her purse down, kicking it closed with her foot and turning the lock as she laughed at memories of Simon trying to start up a karaoke session at the bar.  It seemed funny at the time, at least to them - but not as much to everyone else in the bar.  Now that she was starting to sober up, she could see how some of the other patrons had probably just found them annoying. 

The quick nap in the cab had helped to push away most of her drunkenness, years of working in a bar and sneaking the shots that flirting customers had bought her gave her the ability to rebound fairly quickly after a night of drinking, even though she still often felt nausea and instability on her feet until the next morning.   

Stumbling toward the bedroom to sleep the rest of it off, she stopped dead as she passed the couch.  "Joel!  What the fuck are you doing here?"

The well built fighter lying on her couch didn't stir, his chest rising and falling steadily.

Giving in to an overwhelming urge to sit, Amber plopped down onto the couch next to Joel's chest, causing him to bounce on the cushions and then snap awake.

"What?  What's happened.  Where... oh.  Hi."  He shook his head, shaking off the remains of the deep sleep he'd just been pulled from.

"I thought you weren't..." Amber paused as a wave of nausea fluttered through her stomach.  "...coming home tonight," she finished.

"I know.  Look..." Joel started to say something and then trailed off.

"Whatever," Amber said, smiling.  "I'm glad you came home.  I had the best time tonight.  I went out with Simon and he took me to a gay bar and it was so much fun oh my god.  We tried to sing on stage, well, it wasn't really a stage but there was this-"

"Amber," Joel said, holding up his hand to stop her.  She paused, still smiling at him.  He was again quiet for a moment, lost in thought. 
Does he know who Simon is?  Does he think I'm cheating or something?

"Simon's just my gay friend," she explained.  "I wanted to go drinking tonight and he always goes drinking after work.  He works behind the bar with me.  He's so funny, you should totally meet-"

Joel held up a hand again.  "I don't care about Simon," he said.  "I wanted to talk to you about something else."  Joel's eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips.  "It's about earlier.  I shouldn't have gone off like that.  I know you... I know you were just trying to help.  I know you aren't after money or anything.  I just... the one thing I learned from my parents was to never be in anyone's debt."

He was trying to apologize, and Amber thought it was sweet until he mentioned his parents.   As soon as he did, she remembered the lie she had discovered earlier and she wrinkled her nose at him.  "Your parents?  You mean the ones that died years ago that you never want to talk about?"  Her resolution not to bring it up until she had time to think about it evaporated faster than the Jager bombs in front of Simon.

Joel sat up on the couch, but he looked away.  "There isn't anything to say about them."

"So you're still going with the story that they're dead?"

Joel's head snapped around as he looked at her sharply, but he said nothing.  Her lips had a mind of their own.

"I know you lied about them," she said.  "Simon and I looked them up."  Anger flared in her chest as the accusation burned through her, but then she suddenly remembered what else they had found.  Immediately she could feel tears welling up in her eyes, the alcohol taking her on a roller coaster of emotions.  "Oh, Joel..." she sighed, but he was barely listening to her now as his own anger began to bubble to the surface. 

"What do you mean, you looked them up?" he asked, the words falling from his mouth one at a time.

"On the computer," she said.  Big tears were forming and she had to blink to hold them back.  "But we found something else out," she said.

"What the fuck, Amber?  Who told you to go and look my past up?"

"Joel, would you calm down for a minute?  You said they were dead.  I just wanted to find out the details so I could understand-"  She put her hand on his chest but he shook her off and pulled his legs up and off the couch.  Leaping to his feet he turned back and glared at her.

"I never said they were dead!"

"Yes you did, you told me that your parents had been gone for years."

"Right.  Gone.  I never said dead.  They were gone from my life.  They might as well be dead.  They're dead to me.  But that still gives you no right-"

"Joel, would you stop for a minute!" she said.  She reached out and grabbed his hand, giving it a squeeze.  "Listen, we found something else.  About your father."

"I don't care, Amber," he said, pulling his hand away from hers.  "I fucking told you, they're dead to me.  I don't give a shit what you found out."

Amber stared at Joel, the tears falling from her eyes freely now.  Something about her look gave him pause, his anger seeming to disperse slightly at her raw emotion.  "What?" he demanded.

"Your father.  I'm sorry Joel.  He really is dead."

She watched as his face became an emotionless mask, the color draining from it slightly.  His hands, which had been hanging loosely by his waist, slowly pulled themselves closed into tight fists. 

Joel

The news of his father hit Joel like a roundhouse kick to the head, momentarily making him forget his anger at Amber's betrayal of his privacy. 
Darryl was dead?  He didn't believe it.

"What are you talking about?" he asked slowly.  His body was rigid as he stood there, and he realized that his fists were clenched tightly at his sides.  He loosened them and took a deep breath to steady himself.  Amber was drunk, she probably didn't know what she was talking about.  How would she even know how to find his parents, anyway?

Tears were falling from her eyes and she stepped forward again, now that he wasn't making fists, and grabbed one of his hands, pulling it close to her chest.  "Oh Joel, I'm so sorry.  I wasn't sure if you knew.  I know I shouldn't have been looking them up but Simon was saying that I didn't know anything about you and that he could just look them up quickly and-"

"What did you find," he asked, cutting off her drunken rambling.  He was losing patience with her and he pulled his hand back. 

She paused, looking down at the hand he had yanked away like it was a snake that had just struck her and retreated.  He instantly felt guilty but pushed that emotion aside.  She was the one who should feel guilty for betraying his trust.

"Simon found his obituary in an old newspaper archive online.  At first I didn't know it if it was him, but it mentioned your mother Linda, by name.  But then they didn't say anything about you in it so we looked a little further and-"

"How?" he snapped.  It surprised him more that there had been an obituary in the newspaper at all than the fact that he wasn't mentioned.  Then again, his mother always seemed to have some sick sense of devotion to that malicious fuck, so maybe that was her way of giving him a respectful send off.  He couldn't imagine who would have cared though, neither of them really had any close friends.

"A car accident, he was... well, I don't know if it was true but-"

"Drunk?" he finished for her.  That sounded like his father alright.

Amber just nodded, her big eyes looking warily at him, likely waiting for some sort of breakdown or reaction.  If she was expecting an explosion of tears, she'd be disappointed.  He felt more angry than anything.  But why?
I've wished that fuck was dead more times than I can count, why should I be angry that it's finally true?

"When was this?"

"Last summer," she said.  Her voice was just a whisper now.  She still watched him, but made no more moves to touch him or approach. 

Joel realized his hands were back into tight balls, pressed against his hips.  The blood in his veins raced through him, pulling tension and fury to each of his extremities.  He still had no idea why this news filled him with so much rage.  Unable to determine the true source, he finally settled on focusing on Amber's betrayal as a surrogate.

"You had no right to invade my privacy," he said through his teeth.  His past was his and his alone.  He wasn't proud of it, and he never chose to share any more of it than he had to with anyone.  The fact that Amber and some stranger had dug around in some computer looking up details of his life filled him with apprehension.  His parents had never had any sort of computer growing up, and his school only had them in the library.  Shelters were more concerned with food and beds than technology.  Computers were an unknown entity to him.  He hadn't ever imagined they could also be used to delve into his personal history and spill his secrets.

"Joel, I'm so sorry about your father..."

"Are you kidding me?" he asked, his rage flaring out as he sneered at her.  "You think I give two shits that that sick fuck is dead?  Didn't your fucking computer tell you how Darryl used to beat the shit out of my mother and me?  Didn't it tell you how they kicked me out as soon as I was 18 with just the clothes on my back, happy to finally get rid of me?"

"No!" Amber cried out.  "Joel, I'm sorry.  I had no idea.  We just saw the news about your parents and I thought you should know."

Joel felt his face get hot as he realized it was his own admission now that was revealing the shame of his past, but he pushed past it.  Amber needed to hear these things, needed to know that he was unlovable, even to his parents.  She was too good a person to get wrapped up in his life. 

"Well, now you know.  I learned to fight because of him. I learned how to take a punch, and how to deal with pain.  Maybe I at least have that to thank him for.  He also taught me that no one can be trusted."  He glared in Amber's direction.   "That's one lesson I should have paid more attention to." 

"Joel-"

"I don't want to hear it!" he growled.  The look on his face made Amber take a step back, causing an instant blast of remorse to well up in his stomach.  He swallowed that feeling back as well.  "Coming back here was a mistake," he said, a bit softer this time.  He shook his head as he looked around the little apartment, purposely avoiding eye contact with Amber.  If he saw her tears, he might soften the decisions that were forming in his mind.

This was no place for him.  Amber was too naive.  They had nothing in common.  She didn't
get
him, and she never would.  He'd been alone for years, and that's the way he needed to stay.  Otherwise someone would get hurt.  And he cared too much about Amber to let that someone be her.

"I don't know if this relationship is the best idea," he said.  He stared at the floor between them as he spoke.

"What do you mean?" Amber's voice was quivering.

"I'm worried you're going to get hurt."

"Don't you think that risk is mine to take?" she replied, her voice taking on a more defiant tone. 

He lifted his eyes from the floor to meet her gaze.  She was glaring at him, her eyes red from alcohol and tears.